Indonesian searchers put death toll at 90

Indonesian rescuers in boats and helicopters have found 16 more bodies in the ocean near Bali from a capsized asylum seeker boat, raising the confirmed death toll to 90.

Only 47 passengers were rescued after the overloaded vessel, carrying about 250 mostly Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers to Australia, sank early on Saturday, 40 nautical miles off eastern Java.

“Rescuers and fishermen retrieved 16 more bodies around Bali island, so the total is now 90,” East Java provincial search and rescue agency chief Sutrisno told AFP on Thursday.

“All the bodies have been taken to hospital for formal identification.”

The corpses had been swept about 300 kilometres east from where the boat capsized.

Rescuers had found 43 bodies on Wednesday and another 31 overnight.

“The bodies were in horrible condition. You couldn’t tell men from women. Their limbs came off when rescuers pulled them out of the water,” Sutrisno said earlier.

An AFP reporter on the scene said that at least one of the corpses brought ashore on Wednesday was of a young boy of around seven or eight years old.

“Four helicopters and 10 boats were deployed today. The weather is very good and the sea is calm,” East Java provincial Disaster Management Agency chief Siswanto told AFP.

Survivors have told harrowing tales of clinging to wreckage for three days in violent seas, before being rescued by a passing boat.

Some have said that crew members and migrants fought over about two dozen life vests on the doomed boat, which had a capacity of 100, and that the crew had abandoned ship after it capsized in stormy weather.

Other accounts have said that the vessel keeled over when it became top-heavy due to overloading, and said the captain retrieved life jackets from the water for the passengers.

Officials said that two Indonesians found on Monday near eastern Java’s Malang city - one of whom identified himself as a fisherman - were crew members.

Local reports and a military spokesman said that three soldiers were being questioned over allegations they helped get the asylum seekers on board the ill-fated vessel.

Saturday’s capsize is believed to be the largest loss of life yet from a sinking of one of the many boats packed with Asian and Middle Eastern asylum seekers who undertake the perilous voyage to Australia.